The Economist magazine recently celebrated twenty years of the Big Mac Index, a digestible guide to the purchasing power of currencies around the world and a user-friendly approach to gauging whether a currency is over or under-valued in the global currency markets. Now however there is a digital competitor on the horizon!

One aspect of our globalising world is the sharp rise in the scale of capital investments flows from one country to another. Many nations seem to be falling over themselves to attract inward investment as a means of boosting their capital stock and providing a catalyst for new jobs and higher per capita incomes.

Forget the cultural leanings of Borat, in his weekly feature in the Independent on Sunday, Hamish McRae picked up on the news of David Beckham’s imminent departure to the United States to play for LA Galaxy to highlight the growing role played by cultural exports from Britain as a major source of earnings for our balance of payments.

Richard McGregor reported in yesterday's Financial Times that a key Chinese think-tank linked to their Commerce Ministry has come out in favour of allowing a more substantial appreciation in the value of the Chinese renembi Yuan as part of a long run strategy of making trade more balanced and improving the stability of the Chinese currency.

Gapminder software have produced this animated chart - one of the best that I have seen around recently - with scope for changing the variables on each axis - the initial configuration shows per capita national income and life expectancy.

Today the Office for National Statistics publishes the consumer price index data for December and it may well turn out that CPI inflation has moved above 3 per cent which will require the Governor of the Bank of England to get out his fountain pen!

The Marks and Spencer investor relations team chose an opportune moment yesterday to launch Plan A - their five-year blueprint for the business to become carbon neutral - for Monday also marked the publication of the paperback version of the Stern Report on climate change.

Oil prices are continuing to slide and it may not be too long before they fall back beneath $50 a barrel. The first two weeks of 2007 has seen sustained selling of crude oil in the international petroleum markets and the price of a barrel of crude has dropped to a 19-month low

On the 10th of January 2007, a significant milestone was reached for the World Trade Organisation with the accession of Vietnam to the WTO, the 150th country to be accepted into the organisation that polices trade in goods and services throughout the global economy.

Heather Stewart writes in today’s Sunday Observer about the rapid pace of change in the jobs market that has flowed from the intense pressures applied by globalisation. This week we saw a fresh round of plant closure announcements and the direct loss of hundreds of jobs and potentially thousands more because of the negative multiplier effect.

A recession is a national or an international economic event which involves a decline in the real value of national output, income and spending. Although individual industries and sectors can go â€œinto recessionâ€ perhaps when there is a downturn in demand or a spectacular collapse in prices and profits, the term is usually reserved for the whole economy.

The Bank of England has surprised virtually everyone in the financial markets and in industry and commerce with a January interest rate hike of 0.25% from 5.0% to 5.25% - interest rates are now at their highest level for five years. Background comment and charts.

There has been a chorus of criticism and disappointment over the recent increases in rail fares with the cost of travelling by train rising for the fourth year in a row by more than the official rate of inflation.

On January 1st, the European Union enlarged to 27 nations. The EU has enlarged several times since the "Common Market" was originally set up with just six member states in 1957. Since then there have been six main waves of enlargement. This presentation covers aspects of the Bulgarian and Romania economy including up to date background on their recent macroeconomic performance.

Today we have produced an A-Z quiz covering the economics and business year - a great way to test your general knowledge at the end of another fascinating year both here in the UK and overseas. Download the quiz and the answers as a word file.

It has become obvious in recent years that, despite over fifteen years of macroeconomic price stability, the actual inflation rate experienced by individual households in the economy often bear little close connection with the officially published data. This is set to change.

Students preparing to take the OCR2888 European economics paper in a few days time will be interested to read a story in yesterday's Financial Times on a report from the EU Competition Commission on the structural lack of competition in Europe's energy markets.

Ofgem (Office for general energy markets) has issued a warning to the UK’s main gas suppliers that they should not deliberately delay passing on the recent reductions in wholesale gas prices to their customers. This is in response to criticisms from Energy Watch which acts as an watchdog for consumers.

There was plenty of media interest last week in the story that the UK government had finally repaid the remaining World War II debts to our allies, the United States and Canada. Government ministers were quick to point out that this was a case of Britain honouring its commitments, although they conveniently forgot to mention that the last of the debt repayments was actually six years over due!

The UK labour market has remained strong in 2006 with a modest rise in unemployment but record high levels of people in work Pay has risen faster than inflation â€“ leading to higher real incomes. But average earnings are not threatening a surge in cost inflation. This twenty slide presentation provides a broad overview of the most recent developments in the UK labour market.

There are two decisions taken by the Labour government (and Parliament) over the last eighteen months that I whole-heartedly support, potentially a brace of decisions that will have the biggest single effect on the health of our nation for at least a generation